The Motorola Xoom tablet will be the first to receive the Ice Cream Sandwich update. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com.

Motorola Xoom owners will be some of the first to receive Android version 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) on tablets, kicking off wider distribution of the highly upgraded version of the platform.

The first wave of Xoom tablets will receive the upgrade beginning Wednesday, according to a statement from Motorola. Users fortunate enough to be eligible for upgrade today should see a notification appear on the device announcing ICS (as it is known in its abbreviated version) is ready for download. In the weeks ahead, the updates should be available to more Xoom tablet owners, the company stated.

As one of the first tablets to run Android, we can only assume that Motorola has a deal worked out with Google, in which the Xoom receives new versions of the operating system before most other devices from competing manufacturers. When Google announced version 3.1 of Honeycomb at its I/O developer conference last May, Xoom owners were also the first to receive the update before the roll-out spread to other tablets.

But as we saw at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas last week, tablet-makers are touting Ice Cream Sandwich compatibility as one of the biggest selling points for new devices. Hardware manufacturers like Asus, Lenovo and Samsung boasted forthcoming ICS updates upon the eventual release of their newly unveiled slates, along with a bevy of improved (though only slightly) hardware specs. The Asus Transformer Prime, for example, also launched with Ice Cream Sandwich only weeks ago.

There’s just one problem: We’ve got little idea on the ETA for many of these devices and their ICS updates. Trade shows like CES are notorious as a venue for companies to show off new, half-baked devices in order to compete with their fellow hardware manufacturers. But firm release dates are scant.

Motorola expects other devices in its portfolio to receive the Ice Cream Sandwich update, though we shouldn’t expect them any time soon. In an unusually detailed blog post, Motorola explained that owners of the Razr and Bionic smartphones could have to wait for months to receive the update, mostly due to software configuration and the gamut of tests that cellular carriers put devices through.

It seems today, however, that early Android tablet adopters are the lucky ones.

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